


Telling the Bees

by Qwyzm



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 20:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14064681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qwyzm/pseuds/Qwyzm
Summary: In European tradition, bees are informed of significant events in a beekeeper’s life – marriages, departures & returns to the household, and death. It is believed that if the bees cannot properly mourn, there may be grave consequences for the colony.This tradition is called telling the bees.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> This work was borne of some hard losses and has been a mode of processing my grief. It will deal very directly with themes of grief, loss, and recovery.

John sat in near silence and shifted uncomfortably. Traffic pealed by on the roads below him, and rain beat against the tall windows facing the street. He could hear faint voices coming from downstairs, most likely the television. Mrs. H did enjoy her “Bake Off”. Sherlock was off in Edinburgh, enraptured by a string of crime that he had neatly tied together over the weekend. As John understood it, now it was simply a matter of ‘catching the idiots red-handed’. John stared at Sherlock’s most recent barrage of texts and tucked his phone away with a sigh. Sherlock’s adventures weren’t nearly as fun when he wasn’t a part of them.

The claws of boredom sank deeper. His fingers twitched, and his frayed nerves buzzed for something, anything to take his mind off the _nothingness_ that surrounded him. He briefly thought of Sherlock’s fits of boredom and felt a little self-conscious. Of course, life since Sherlock had never been truly boring. Even the flat was a trove of oddities and loose ends that Sherlock had hoarded and forgotten over the years. The first time John had walked in, he felt as if he had walked into a haphazard museum curated by the subject of its study. He had never felt comfortable looking through Sherlock's souvenirs under the detective's watchful eye, and it still felt like an invasion of privacy. Sherlock’s shelves had gathered John’s curiosity and a fair amount of dust between surreptitious cleanings.

Arguably less personal was Sherlock’s eclectic bookshelf. Books were fair game, John decided, pushing out of his chair to peruse the titles. Most were medical texts, forensics, psychology, the occasional true crime story; nothing surprising. A series of crime fiction novels teased a soft smile from John’s lips. The fact that Sherlock owned pedestrian crime novels was endearing. Some of the books were in foreign languages. John cocked an eyebrow when he found a dog-eared collection of Shakespeare's sonnets and other works. He crossed the fireplace and continued to read through the rows of books, generally unsurprised but vaguely amused nonetheless. Then he paused, his gaze resting upon faded gold letters embossed in dark leather: "ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture." Immediately to the right of the hardcover was a more recent edition, and beside that several more books about bees – specifically, honeybees. John paused, then pulled out the leather-bound _ABC and XYZ_. It was a shock to see "W.S.S. Holmes" written in loopy cursive on the inside cover in pencil. John's curiosity spurred him to flip through a few pages, and he discovered several charming annotations. Some of the notes were written in the same shaky hand, but most had been written in Sherlock’s familiar scrawl.

With a contented sigh, John relaxed into his chair and thumbed through the book to read through Sherlock’s notes. Only Sherlock could read and _annotate_ a bloody encyclopedia. John had never realized there was quite so much to know about honeybees, or that Sherlock was so passionate about them. He carefully tucked the book back in its place on the shelf and filed Sherlock's obsession with bees into the back of his mind. Come spring they could take a walk through the park on a dull day. He might even find a moment to ask Sherlock about the bees.

  
The imagined afternoon in the park with the bees never came. Moriarty and his bloody game clouded their life and stole their precious time. John stood by Sherlock through it all until his patience snapped in the lab. Not even an hour later, Sherlock jumped. John had come to think of their lives as one, a life meant for them to live together, and now Sherlock’s was over.

  
Sherlock was gone. Gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh grief.

Death was not a new concept.

John had ways of compartmentalizing and justifying and focusing on the next day, the next patient, the next life in his hands. Even as a student in the hospital, death became part of the routine. As several of his professors had stressed, it was a natural part of life. It wasn’t easy, it never was. But it had been a part of his life for years, and he had learned how and when to embrace it. There was a time to fight, and a time to accept the inevitable.

Suicide wasn’t new either. Even before he struggled personally, John had lost brothers in arms to their own bullets and belts. Receiving the news always left him breathless. But then, diagnoses of PTSD or depression filtered the news through a clinical light – a tragedy, but understandable, preventable, treatable. The Army had PowerPoints for that. And so, life went on.

Never since his childhood had John felt such a visceral and painful lack of understanding. _Why?_ As a doctor, a soldier, a friend, John couldn’t find an answer. Where there was once an abundant wealth of information – answers John didn’t wish to know to questions he didn’t think to ask – Sherlock had now left a gaping hole that he couldn’t fill. Sherlock’s explanation, more like an excuse, didn’t satisfy him. The ‘confession’ had washed over his ears, only taking root as news stations projected Sherlock’s lies in Piccadilly Square, newspapers, magazines, talk shows, everywhere. It was inescapable and inconceivable. Nobody believed in Sherlock. The public that had carried him to such heights now turned on him, casting him away as a fraud. But John had been there. His life had changed over the course of a brief conversation, followed by an invitation.

John knew that his blog was to blame for this mess, at least in part. He knew Sherlock hated the publicity, as much as he adored to put on a show. The cameras, the media attention, the fuss over his relationship status and clothing choices irritated him. He had only ever wanted to showcase his work, but he ended up being put on for show himself. John pulled out his laptop, whisking away the emails and the articles, opening a new post on his blog. He watched the cursor blink until the burning in his throat and nose became too much, and silent tears rolled down his cheeks. What could he say? It had been a few days. He ought to say _something_.

He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, curling his toes together. The flat was too bloody quiet. It would always be too quiet from now on. But he needed the quiet of the flat to escape the noise of the outside world. Death had many consequences: arrangements needed to be made, belongings cleaned up and cleaned out, life must grind on. The media had taken care of phone calls, for better or for worse. Everyone who knew anyone knew that Sherlock had died, and how. The incoming calls, texts, and emails had inundated him at first. There were questions he couldn’t answer, questions he couldn’t bring himself to answer, accusations he couldn’t stomach. Everyone seemed to think he was Sherlock’s closest friend – and maybe he was, maybe he had been, but with every acquaintance he had never met and every touching story he had never heard before, a heavy weight grew in the pit of John’s stomach. Had he really known Sherlock at all? He quickly reached the conclusion that he had wasted his time with the man, not realizing that it would be cut short so soon. Even if he had spent his life with Sherlock, he would have wasted it. He was too cautious, too scared, too late.

He couldn’t win.

He coughed against a sob that welled up with bile in his throat. The five stages of grief were shit. Grief came in waves. Denial, bargaining, anger, depression, rinse and repeat – John wasn’t sure he would ever reach acceptance. Part of him didn't want that. Accepting Sherlock’s death would be putting him to rest, and John wasn’t ready. For the rest of his life, he would never be ready.

John sniffed, swallowed, and tried to bring himself back to his task. The blog. He typed out a simple sentence and posted it.

_He was my best friend and I’ll always believe in him._

That was all he could manage.

Looking around the flat he became more aware of just how much work he had to do. He stood with a heavy sigh and glanced over his shoulder into the kitchen. He pursed his lips and turned back toward Sherlock’s empty armchair. Every nook and cranny of the flat had Sherlock’s mark on it – things were his, or worst of all, _theirs_ – souvenirs from cases that they had bought, or that Sherlock had nicked. The crystal ashtray from Buckingham palace sat ignored and unused on the table, and a lucky cat stared from the mantle. John wasn’t sure which was worse – the things he couldn’t take because they weren’t his, or the things he couldn’t bear to take because they would only remind him of Sherlock. The memories hurt. The flat itself made him ache. It wasn’t home.

He took a step away from his chair and crossed the hearth to stand by Sherlock’s chair. He brushed his fingers over the tiny cracks in the soft grey leather. He glanced across the walls, lingering on the spot in the corner where a dab of adhesive still clung to the wallpaper. John remembered his confusion and horror as Sherlock had climbed the furniture, casually plucking a camera from the wall as though he was plucking lint from John’s jumper. In the last several weeks, they had lost their privacy. The sanctity of their home had been violated by Moriarty’s break-ins and Mycroft’s nattering about so-called security. The cameras were gone now. Apparently, he wasn’t worth watching now that he was alone.

A shelf crammed with worldly detritus quivered in John’s vision. He knelt and properly inspected the souvenirs for the first time. They were all pieces of Sherlock’s life before him – a life that he desperately wished to know now. He had been so content with the present that he had never considered delving into Sherlock’s past. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure Sherlock would have told him much even if he had asked. Despite the darkness that had crept in at some point, John knew that Sherlock must have always been extraordinary. He didn’t want to be jealous of the people who had known Sherlock his entire life, but he wished that he could have been there. He craved information, as if that would fill the hole in his heart. At the very least, the depth of his pain might feel more justified. He exhaled slowly and considered the personal effects that surrounded him, the weight of it all threatening to suffocate him. What would Sherlock do? He would take these facts and artifacts and deduce a narrative. He could do that, too. If he couldn’t have Sherlock, he would cobble together a representation based on deductions. It was almost logical. He could mourn Sherlock in his entirety.

John’s throat tightened as he walked around the flat with fresh eyes. Sherlock was a master of Judo, a fact he displayed in a certificate on his bedroom wall. Previously written off as an annoying experiment, John realized that for the dog hair poster (complete with samples, by necessity) Sherlock must have stopped and collected hair from each of the species listed. John laughed through his tears as he imagined Sherlock categorically petting dogs and then saving the shed fur. He considered the artwork that Sherlock had brought into the flat. The man had always considered himself rooted in facts, science, and reality, but he had clearly had a sensual side. John had seen Sherlock’s humanity for better and for worse. He felt as though he had never stopped to fully appreciate it. That was something of a lie – he had spent many evenings drifting off to Sherlock’s violin, and he had borne witness to cases that compelled Sherlock to show a rare but deep reserve of compassion. Come to think of it, his introduction to Sherlock had been a spectacular show of understanding on Sherlock’s part. He had met Sherlock as an irate, infirm man teetering on the edge of suicide. Over the course of one breathtaking night, Sherlock had brought him back to life. With a wink and a smile, Sherlock had lit a fire within him, encouraging him to take steps toward recovery. Within weeks, John felt like a person again. He wished that he had the same insight, that he could have performed a miracle for Sherlock like so many Sherlock had done for him before.

John wandered about the flat, trying and failing to suppress a slow but steady stream of tears that ran hot down his cheeks. Amidst his grief, he clung to any variation in emotion. He laughed a few times when he unearthed a particularly amusing Post-It, and he wrinkled his nose in guiltless disgust when he found a disgustingly moldy orange with a scrawled note specifically demanding him to leave it alone. How many times had he explained to Sherlock that their kitchen was not a lab, and was, in fact, a place to prepare and consume food? In a way, the irritation was comforting. That was a normal feeling. Normality was so fleeting now. That morning, Mrs. Hudson had brought up two cups of tea, intending to sit down with him. He hadn’t realized the second cup was for her until it was too late. He had taken them both. He automatically assumed it was for Sherlock… and then he remembered. The soft grief in her eyes had hit him harder than a punch to the gut. Every time he forgot that Sherlock was gone, guilt and shame crashed over him as reality hit, leaving only sadness in its wake once the cold shock receded.

John wandered to Sherlock’s bedroom and sat down on the side of the bed, sagging with the mattress as he stared at the periodic table on the wall. The measure of a man was impossible to quantify. No amount of study or experimentation would ever yield a definition for the man he had considered his best friend. He laid down hesitantly, exhausted by grief. Sherlock’s mattress didn’t creak, and despite the nagging voice in his head telling him that what he was doing was probably wrong, he couldn’t imagine getting up now. He was mystified how he managed to exhaust himself by doing not much of anything, but he couldn’t argue with his heavy head. He shamelessly buried his nose into Sherlock’s sheets to chase his scent. Cigarettes, sweat, soap, and some note John couldn’t identify. It was that air of mystery that made the flat smell like home. The illusion of intimacy allowed him to drift off into a heavy sleep. When he woke, he felt like shit. His entire face felt a bit swollen from crying, but he could easily lie and pass off his red-rimmed eyes to a lack of sleep. He had been with Sherlock in his dreams. Upon waking, he was alone in Sherlock’s bed. John closed his eyes, grasping tightly to the details he could remember until the sun and Mrs. Hudson’s incessant knocking stirred him.

John knew he looked terrible. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes and his hair was a right mess, not to mention his snotty nose and red eyes. But Mrs. Hudson wasn’t going to leave until he opened the door.

Immediately, she scolded him. “You weren’t upstairs! I was worried!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his throat sore and strained from the night before. He tried to prop himself up just enough to placate her. “I, uh… passed out. Just exhausted. Slept on the sofa.”

He avoided her gaze, unable to fathom neither pity nor judgment. When she didn’t respond, he glanced up. He wasn’t prepared to see the same quiet sadness from the previous morning. He licked his dry lips and glanced away. As alone as he felt, being around other people was suffocating. They all wanted to _talk_. Sherlock had known the value of sitting in silence. They both had bad nights on occasion, and they both knew talking wasn’t always helpful. John ached for one more silent night with Sherlock. They could spend time alone even when they sat together. He wasn’t sure he would ever find that again.

John cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his hair. The more put together he looked, the less Mrs. H would worry about him.

“Uh… What do you need?” He cringed slightly at his brusque tone but made no attempt to rephrase his question.

Martha Hudson was more astute than John or Sherlock ever acknowledged; she had also reached a point in life where she rarely gave a shit about decorum unless she felt personally compelled, or if there were guests coming. She was unapologetically herself, and to that end, she was often a bit blunt, though she was almost always kind. She cared for her tenants, but after decades of walking on eggshells around her husband, she wouldn’t be discouraged by one moody man, irrespective of the circumstances. She waited to speak until she saw John’s shoulders stoop with regret as his defenses came crumbling down.

“I thought we could start to discuss the funeral.” She spoke delicately, but there was a practical nature to her concern. “Before Mycroft does anything,” she explained with a mild expression of disdain.

John grimaced at the thought and nodded shortly. He sniffed, turning and shuffling into the flat. He moved a few stacks of papers off the sofa that he had allegedly slept on, sitting down and patting the spot next to him. He scratched his stubbled jaw and wondered how long he would have to wait before his stomach would stop roiling. He didn’t have any appetite, and the deeper he slipped into this depression, the less inclined he felt to force any food down. He knew the hunger would fade eventually. He watched as Mrs. Hudson sat down next to him, then he sighed heavily.

“I don’t really know where to start,” he admitted softly.

He didn’t know of any expressed preferences when it came to Sherlock’s funeral arrangements. They had never discussed it properly. After close calls, they traded jokes and relieved laughter as they came down from adrenaline’s high, but the closest they had come to a serious conversation was Sherlock expressing disdain for proper burials – he wondered why to go to all the fuss. He didn’t seem to understand that funerals were more for the living than the dead.

John crossed his arms and tried to stay engaged as Mrs. Hudson began to build the framework for the funeral. She brought up the funeral parlor and director where Sherlock had previously referred clients when missing persons were discovered deceased, or remains were finally released back to the family after a murder case.

John nodded numbly.

“I want- I want to see if we can make it open to the public,” he finally said. Mrs. Hudson flinched in surprise at the sound of his voice. “He… meant a lot to people.” His left hand began to twitch, and he clenched it a few times as he fought to regain control. Mrs. Hudson reached over and gently covered his hands with hers.

“That’s a wonderful idea, John.” She offered a smile, and patted his arm, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze as she stood to leave. “You have quite a lot to think about. I’ll be up with tea.”

John exhaled with relief that he hoped wasn’t too obvious, and he nodded. “Thank you,” he said, though he couldn’t say what for, exactly.

He knew that he couldn’t let himself stagnate too long. Putting Sherlock to rest would, in theory, help the rest of them move on. John wasn’t sure about that in practice, but he knew he couldn’t ignore the funeral forever. After puttering around with a bit of cleaning, John finally forced himself to call the funeral director. His name brought no recognition, but upon explaining that he was Sherlock’s friend, he was met by the familiar, reserved, _“Oh,_ yes.”

He set up a meeting time, and that in turn encouraged him to shower and change his clothes. Despite all the progress he had made since meeting Sherlock, there had been some bad days. There were days that he had stayed in bed with made up illnesses as he battled a very real one in his mind. But even on those days, he knew that he would recover and feel the sun on his face again, maybe even the next day. This felt like a depth from which he could never emerge. He slowly remembered that surviving sometimes meant small victories, each of which he tried to claim as one more reason to strive for the next. With help from Mrs. Hudson, John made decisions and sought to give Sherlock a suitable service. It was informal, with a closed casket. John didn’t want people coming in to gawk at a body. He needed to preserve Sherlock’s dignity. Besides, this was about Sherlock’s memory, not his body. He didn’t question the funeral director’s relief when John requested a closed casket.

In lieu of talking to Mycroft, John dealt exclusively with Anthea. She had the sense not to offer her condolences, at least not in a canned catchphrase. John didn’t know whether she knew the extent of her boss’s dealings in his own brother’s demise, and he couldn’t blame her for Mycroft’s poor decisions. Still, the explosive knowledge that Mycroft had given away Sherlock’s weaknesses had left shrapnel that still lodged in his throat whenever he thought of the man. He couldn’t rightfully ban Mycroft from his brother’s funeral, but he would be damned if he let Mycroft dictate every detail. He reached out regarding photographs of Sherlock from their childhood and informed Anthea of the arrangements he had made. He didn’t ask how Mycroft was coping. He couldn’t bring himself to care.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The funeral.

When the day of the funeral came, John wasn’t ready. He wasn’t sure he ever would be ready. The shock had worn off, besides the annoyingly frequent inability to internalize Sherlock’s death. He still made two cups of tea sometimes. He had mostly stopped choking up every time he thought of his friend. He wasn’t ready to bury him. It seemed so final.

He had gone to the funeral parlor the night before to set up the posters displaying photographs and memories. Mycroft had sent Anthea over with a box of photographs from Sherlock’s childhood, and John had spent hours looking through them. He slowly pieced together a part of Sherlock’s life that they had never really discussed. It seemed a picturesque childhood. Now he would never know how Sherlock really felt about it. Clearly, something had happened; something had changed. The photos dropped off around his early teenage years, and then there was nothing until a stony-faced graduation photo taken at Cambridge. Sherlock had lost his boyish chubby cheeks, and the smiles that had come so abundantly in his childhood had faded away. John wished he could fill some of the gaps. He was grateful that Sherlock's smile had surfaced again in recent years. He didn’t want to think about the world without it.

Dressing for the funeral felt like preparing for battle, without any of the camaraderie or bluster. The deafening silence reminded him that he had to face this alone. His suit was pressed, his hair combed and gelled into place. He had shaved twice, in the hopes of avoiding a haggard look by the end of the day. Any measures he could take would surely help. He steeled himself for the pity and morbid curiosity that he had attracted since the day Sherlock died. In the mirror, John looked a perfect picture except for the emptiness in his tired eyes, and the bags that weighed them down. He repeatedly checked his watch until he couldn’t delay any further, then he slowly headed down the stairs to collect Mrs. Hudson.

Mrs. Hudson was chatty on the way to the funeral parlor. Perhaps she felt she needed to fluff the space with words so that their grief couldn’t smother them. John sat quietly, humming or quietly agreeing on the pauses in her speech, but not really listening. They had discussed Sherlock’s death a few times, but Mrs. Hudson was always so insistent to stress how _different_ everything would be.

“So quiet now…”

“No more visitors, at all hours of the day!”

“Body parts in my fridge-”

“That _noise_ in the middle of the night…”

It wasn’t helpful. For each of her gripes, John had to bite back the flip side.

No more conversation.

No more clients.

No more quiet nights punctuated by the clink of glassware and the turning of newspapers, and perhaps the occasional small explosion.

No more Tchaikovsky, or Vivaldi, or Mozart, or Holmes. Sherlock had shared a few of his original compositions, and now John wished he had a recording. It would pale in comparison to hearing the bow dance across the strings of Sherlock’s violin, filling the flat with music and resin dust, but it would be something.

John had always scolded Sherlock for tuning Mrs. Hudson out, but now he couldn’t help but do the same. He was too exhausted to feel guilty about detaching himself from Mrs. Hudson’s side almost immediately when they arrived. He needed to finalize things, he reasoned, to make sure everything was right before the guests came. He had half an hour before the crowd descended and he would be stuck smiling and shaking hands and lying to friends and strangers.

He walked around the room and took stock. The décor had all the drab drapings of a funeral parlor; ubiquitous tissue boxes, bland wallpaper, a certain musty smell that even the bunches of flowers couldn’t cover up. At the front of the room lay Sherlock’s coffin with a spray of flowers on top. He paused before the kneeling bench. Sherlock might start rolling if John knelt to pray for him. He knew that his only prayer would be hopeless – all he wanted was for Sherlock to be alive. He extended his hand, gently laying it about two thirds up the length of the coffin, roughly where Sherlock’s chest should be. He closed his eyes, not fighting tears if only because he had exhausted his supply. The hard, cool surface of the coffin felt wrong on his palm. It should be warm flesh, a shirt and a chest and a heart beating in steady assurance. Sherlock’s heart no longer beat. His skin would be cold, unfeeling, all the things he had claimed to be, but never was. John pulled his hand away suddenly, clenching a fist as his chest caved in. He sucked in a desperate breath and turned away. He couldn’t think about Sherlock. He had to think about getting through the day first.

As the time drew nearer for guests to arrive, John took his place and stood at attention. There was little he could control at this point; any shreds of illusion he could have were good enough. From his position in the corner of the room near the coffin, John trained his eyes on the door. To his shock (though he would never admit it) once the doors opened, a steady flow of people trickled in. John liked to imagine a great crowd mourning the great man, but doubt had seeped in as people had withdrawn. John tried to keep his expression under control, and eventually adopted a tight smile. First came the Yarders. Greg had worn his uniform out of respect for his unofficial colleague, and with him came several familiar faces. Dimmock, Sally, even Anderson. John watched them carefully as they wound their way around the room, each of them pausing to hug Mrs. Hudson. John could see the weight on Greg’s shoulders, but he couldn’t reach out and offer to share the load; he could barely carry his own. Still, as each of them approached to shake his hand, he gave Greg a hug and the others a firm handshake.

“Thank you for coming,” he murmured, and he meant every word, even to Sally who couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Anderson was actually crying. John didn’t know what to do, and he was thankful when Greg ushered the man away to clean him up.

The day rolled on, and the crowd continued churning. John saw clients, fans, colleagues (professionals and Sherlock’s alternatively employed acquaintances), along with a rather large number of apparently homeless people, some of whom John recognized as sources from the cases he had taken with Sherlock. Along with the pleasant surprises, John couldn’t help but notice who _didn’t_ show up. Molly didn’t come. He had been expecting to see her, even steeling himself to comfort her, but he never saw her. Come to think of it, he hadn’t heard from her, not since before Sherlock jumped. He was most shocked that Sherlock’s parents didn’t show up. They had never discussed their families in any detail, but Sherlock never said that his parents were dead. John knew better than to assume that meant they were alive but hadn’t Mycroft and Sherlock traded snippy taunts about their mother? John concluded that maybe his parents preferred something private and closer to home, wherever that was.

Mycroft made an appearance eventually, regarding everyone in an equally chilly manner, even his departed younger brother. He didn’t stay more than fifteen minutes in total, and left as inconsequentially as he had arrived, unnoticed and apparently unbothered by the whole event. John practically saw red but tried to tamp his anger down as Mycroft’s PA approached him, ignoring the queue in favor of crossing the room.

“You’ve done a nice job, Dr. Watson,” she remarked, pausing for only a moment so the words could sink in before she turned on her heels and hurried out after Mycroft for whatever came next on his bloody itinerary. The day of his brother’s funeral!

John tried to throw his focus into each person who crossed his path, accepting and offering condolences, and carefully listening to every story that was offered to him. Some were insignificant, but even some of the shortest stories held a light up to the multi-faceted man that Sherlock had chiseled into being. John laughed, cried, and reveled in the revelations of Sherlock’s private interactions with others. His heart felt light as he heard the many ways Sherlock had touched so many people, and he only ached to share that knowledge with Sherlock. Perhaps he knew now. As big as the detective’s head had swollen regarding his intelligence and abilities, he had never quite wrapped that big head around the fact that people liked him. Thank God, John supposed, but still – it was a grim outlook, to think that he was only wanted for his mind and never for who he was.

John could handle most of the fans, and the colleagues, and even the friends here and there. He had struggled with what to say to Mike Stamford, who looked almost as pained and confused as John felt, but he finally settled on a heartfelt thank you. Even in the face of this heart-wrenching pain, John wouldn’t trade his time with Sherlock for anything.

He lost himself completely when Harry showed up and wrapped him in her arms. She smelled sober, like hotel shampoo and toothpaste and a cheap coffee bought on the run. John wept into her shoulder, his pain and exhaustion flowing freely as if a dam had broken. He had reached a limit to how much grief and guilt he could carry; as he saw his younger sister for the first time in too long it overflowed. He couldn’t express precisely what was wrong. Everything was wrong.

Harry and Sherlock both heard how much pain they caused him, and neither heard enough how dearly he held them. He couldn’t tell Harry that he had expected to plan her funeral if she didn’t have to plan his first. He never told her how close he had come to putting her in this position, and now that he was here, that thought wracked him in sobs. He apologized and begged for forgiveness for a multitude of sins too muddled to pick apart. He was sorry for leaving. He was sorry for drifting. He was sorry for not being there when she needed him most and then coming home so damaged he was barely any good to her while she was fighting her own battles. He was so, so sorry for _something_ that he couldn’t even voice, but before he could continue his increasingly hoarse rambling, Harry led him away to a private room and found a cup, ordering him to drink. He took the cup, squeezing his eyes shut as a shudder passed through him. A dark part of him wished the cup contained something stronger than tap water. When he opened his eyes to Harry’s unsure expression, he knew that his sister could read him like a book. She knew his shameful wish, and he knew that she had likely shared that wish a hundred times over. John swallowed hard, then took a sip to wash down the bitter poison of their troubled past.

“I’m proud of you,” he said quietly, his throat sore from all the talking and the crying. “And… thank you. For coming. And… Sorry I didn’t call, I-” He took another sip, the cup in his hand shook slightly after he swallowed. “I’ve been trying to get things done. There’s so much.”

Harry quieted him with a gentle squeeze to his good shoulder, immediately followed by another hug. “Just wish you’d call me, you know? I’m your sister,” she pressed, though she sounded more uncertain about her importance in his life than ever before.

As they grew up, their age difference both benefitted and hurt them. Five years wasn’t an impossible distance, but once they reached a certain age, John didn’t want to stoop to her level anymore. And still she was loyal, enthusiastic, and loving with all her heart. When John left abruptly for university, Harry was crushed. When he vowed never to return home, she must have felt so alone. He didn’t know about her sexuality until she contacted him to let him know that she too had left home and had a steady girlfriend. They never spoke about the interim years, but John knew she must have been miserable. University had been a convenient excuse for him, but he had been waiting to leave since his first crush on a boy when he was fourteen. He sometimes wondered what might have happened if he had been brave and stayed.

John told himself he tried to be a good brother, but in all honesty, he had failed. Perhaps he couldn’t judge Mycroft so harshly after all. John had been so concerned with his own life, so excited by his own prospects, that he had stood by while arguments and alcoholism clouded his little sister’s life to the point that she no longer recognized herself. Her life got steadily worse while John rose through the ranks in the Army, deploying for months at a time before stopping home for a celebratory pint (or four) with his sister while on leave. He cringed in hindsight.

By the time he had slowed down enough to be able to focus on her problems, once again he was too embroiled in his own. He had just been invalided out of his career path, and he had to come to grips with a purposeless life. Harry had swooped in to catch him. She even gave John her old phone already programmed with her new number, but he hardly availed himself of it. He couldn’t afford liquor and he didn’t want to talk. That’s all she ever wanted to do. Things had gotten a bit better after John met Sherlock – they met up a few times between cases, spoke on the phone or through email, but they were never as close as they had been in her early childhood. He wasn’t sure they ever would be again.

John shifted in his chair and broke his reverie, pulling Harry into a tight hug. “Thank you for coming. It’s… really good to see you.”

Harry slapped his back, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Yeah, you too! You should come around more often.” She gave him a small smile and plucked out a couple tissues for him.

John cleaned up and glanced at the clock, sighing when he saw he still had an hour to go before they were supposed to go bury Sherlock. It was something of a rushed affair, but part of him just wanted it all over with. John stood up and brushed himself off, bringing Harry back with him. As he re-entered the viewing room, he busied himself with introducing Sherlock’s friends to his sister, putting names to faces for her.

Finally, the doors closed. The funeral director came to the front of the room and addressed the crowd that had stuck around for the burial. He said a few words about his professional relationship with Sherlock, including a few of Sherlock’s quips and questions about his job that made John cringe as hard as they made him laugh. He sobered when the floor was offered to anyone who wanted to make any comments. John swore he could instantly feel at least half a dozen pairs of eyes on him. He sunk into his chair a little. He had never been good at these things. He had to prepare his words to make sure he got them right. As it became evident that he would not be speaking, a few individuals chose to stand and share the stories they told John earlier. Then, to his great surprise and mild horror, Harry stood. Even as he blushed, John folded his hands in his lap. Things would only be worse if he tried to stop her.

“I never met Sherlock,” she began, glancing up as she realized she ought to backtrack. “I’m Harry, I’m John’s sister. If you’re here, you know John. You’d better.”

She paused as the crowd tittered quietly and John thought his ears might just melt off for how hot they were burning. “I never met Sherlock, but I’ve known John my entire life. Literally, since I was in nappies.”

Another pause for another amused huff amongst the crowd.

John knew Harry wasn’t trying to be funny, and in all honesty, any break from the saturated tragedy was welcome.

Harry’s pause hung heavy as she searched for words, twisting her lips in a way that mirrored John. “I’ve known John in the good times, and in plenty of bad. And I have to say… Sherlock met him at a pretty shit time.” The crowd didn’t laugh now; they could see from Harry’s face that it was no laughing matter. “Even though I never met Sherlock, I became his greatest fan- _one of,_ ” she quickly corrected.

“I think John takes home the ‘greatest’ title,” she teased gently with a smirk meant only for him. “But we’re here to talk about Sherlock. So…” When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and raw, a stark contradiction to her brash and unapologetic presence. “I don’t know what he did, or how he did it, but he worked a miracle for my brother. He took a man who… who wasn’t himself, and he made him new. And I saw, and heard, _so_ many people today who must’ve been touched by that… Sherlock magic, or whatever the hell it is. And that’s what we’re here to celebrate. So, thank you for coming. Thank you for your support.” She eyed John carefully, then decided it was nearly time to sit down. “Sherlock, we love you,” she concluded, bustling back to her seat amidst scattered applause from the small group.

John covered his face, embarrassed and proud and thankful all at once, and he just wished he could feel one thing at a time, even just for a little while. Anything but the grief. Once he had regained some semblance of control, he tuned in to discover that the time had come to move Sherlock’s body to his final resting place. His stomach and hands turned to stone, and he tried to steady himself for the next part of the longest day of his life.

He insisted on being a pallbearer. Together with Lestrade, Stamford, and the funeral director himself, John helped move Sherlock out the door and into the hearse. As the men carried the coffin, John thought back to the times he had carried Sherlock’s body in the flat – limp with exhaustion, or alcohol, or that time the Woman had drugged him and Greg simply filmed the fiasco of getting Sherlock home _and_ up the stairs. Sherlock’s weight had been hell on his back and knees, and Sherlock had always tangled his limbs around John in the most awkward way. But now, even as Sherlock’s body weighed painfully upon his shoulder, John was glad to carry him one last time.

Once the hearse was ready to go, John flagged down Harry to ask for a ride, arranging for Greg to ride with Mrs. Hudson. He didn’t want her to be alone, but he couldn’t be cooped up with her for however long it took them to reach the cemetery. She was already starting to move on, or so it seemed, and John couldn’t fathom it. He knew it wasn’t healthy to feel that way, but he couldn’t force himself to be around someone happier than him.

As he climbed into the passenger seat of Harry’s dinged Volkswagen, he glanced across at her with a question that she answered before he could ask.

“I’ve got my license, dummy,” she chided cheerfully, pulling it out of her wallet and modeling her smile. She laughed at John’s grumpy huff. He had always hated when she beat him.

She put the car in gear and queued up. She reached over to take John’s hand, interlacing their fingers. She was worried about him. He hadn’t slipped quite so far as her into poor coping habits, but he tended to sit with his feelings before deciding to drink them away. It made her nervous in a way she couldn’t admit. If he couldn’t control himself, how could she be certain she could hold onto her sobriety? The new program she had been following helped her immeasurably, targeting feelings she never really identified before. She felt more confident in her recovery, more genuine in her relationships, and less like a chronic failure when she felt the tingling of temptation. She hoped that John would keep in touch. They rode in silence, Harry watching the road and John staring out the window. Harry only released John’s hand when the car ground to a halt.

John walked back to the hearse, taking his position as they pulled the casket out and carried it to the graveside. It was a nice place, under a pine tree. Its massive trunk cast a shadow in the golden light of impending dusk. Mycroft stood a distance away, apart from the mourning party, but John chose to ignore him. He certainly wouldn’t welcome him.

Their shadows grew long in the waning light, and soon it was time to say goodbye. The casket was lowered, and each of them tossed a handful of dirt into the grave, along with a few flowers. John felt like throwing up. He leaned against Harry and Mrs. Hudson and let his family lead him back to Harry’s car to go home. As they drove away, emotions welled up again, asphyxiating him from within. He practiced slow breathing and avoided Harry’s worried glances in the rearview mirror. He was thankful that Mrs. Hudson had declined to ride with him, instead choosing to get a bite to eat with Greg and some of the other mourners. John was too tired to socialize any more, and he didn’t have any appetite.

Back at Baker Street, John wasn’t sure what to feel. He was relieved that the funeral was over, but he also felt panicked because now, it was all over. There was nothing left. Now he had to face the reality that Sherlock was gone. He left Harry with empty promises to take care of himself and call her. He made her promise to call him, in case she needed him. She agreed cordially, but they both privately resolved to find another outlet before turning to each other. Harry watched John walk into the flat, pausing briefly before finally pulling away.

John turned a few lights on and stood in the doorway for a couple minutes. He was overwhelmed. Where to start? John knew that if he asked, Mycroft would send people to come through and scrub the flat of all traces of Sherlock, but he didn’t want that. He could make decisions after getting some sleep. He skipped dinner, choosing instead to head straight up to his room. He stripped off his clothes and curled up in his bed, feeling more alone than ever.

The morning came before he was ready, but he couldn’t sleep in for long. His stomach churned in protest, and finally, John started to understand Sherlock’s irritation with his so-called ‘transport’. It required care and upkeep that he simply couldn’t be bothered to provide. He traipsed down the stairs in his pants, not bothering to cover up with a robe. What was the point? He headed toward the kitchen and gazed at the disaster area on the table. It was a starting point. He grabbed a few biscuits and put the kettle on, then started to clean the kitchen. The microscope could go back to Bart’s. Assorted glassware, lab equipment, and slide samples could be donated. John found a couple boxes and tidied up, then he cleaned out the experiments that likely constituted a health hazard. They had gone largely untended since before Sherlock’s death, and in the days since, several had gone off. The work was tedious, but it kept John busy. This kind of cleaning wasn’t personal. He was only returning what had been borrowed (or stolen, knowing Sherlock) and tidying up. He wasn’t really getting rid of anything yet.

Upon thoroughly cleaning the fridge, cupboards, sink, counters, windowsill, oven, microwave, and table, John finally sat down with a slight sense of satisfaction. Yes, he had spent the entire day in his boxers, but he had accomplished more than he thought possible. The kitchen looked decent now, though a stack of post-it notes still littered the counter. John couldn’t throw them out yet. Another day, maybe. His stomach rumbled, and he realized that he had never even finished making his tea. He opened the newly cleaned fridge and found that it was mostly barren. He pulled out some bread and slathered it with jam, eating it over the sink so he wouldn’t have to wash another plate. He didn’t have the energy for that. John finished two slices of bread before putting everything away and dusting crumbs off his face and chest. He made a mental note to drop the packed boxes off at Bart’s. Maybe tomorrow.

He walked into the sitting room and groaned at the stacks waiting for him there. As he mentally mapped out the flat, he knew the hardest places would be the sitting room – or the unofficial office space – and Sherlock’s bedroom. He was thoroughly exhausted even though it was only mid-afternoon, creeping into the evening. He plopped down in his chair, staring dolefully at Sherlock’s. The man was an enigma. A prism with infinite facets. And a bloody packrat.

The following days were similar. John tackled the bathroom, cleaning first, and then putting Sherlock’s things in his bedroom, packing up whatever he could donate. The closet came next, and in cleaning out the closet, John found his way into Sherlock’s closet. His clothing was impeccably sorted by some system of Sherlock’s own devising that John couldn’t understand. The rest of his things, however, were more haphazard. A box on the floor of the closet seemed to contain mementos from Sherlock’s younger years and some newspaper clippings from some of their recent cases. John stared for a few minutes, struck and touched by the sentimentality. Sherlock had ridiculed John’s case scrapbook, complete with clippings and some handwritten commentary for context, but apparently, he had treasured those memories too. Or perhaps he just wanted to hoard the favorable media. Beneath the newspapers were articles, a few military-themed magazines, and some old notes from what must have been a uni friend, signed V.

When John realized that he was getting hungry again, he checked the time and swore. Hours had passed without his notice. He loosely shuffled everything back into order and shoved the papers back into the box. He stood up and took a couple steps back, silently resigning himself to the conclusion that Sherlock’s clothes ought to be donated as well. It crossed his mind that he ought to try to contact the homeless network to see who among them might benefit. He added that to his growing to-do list.

He made another quick, bland dinner and tried to keep up with the bare necessities of life. A couple of people had checked in with him, mainly Mrs. Hudson popping in when he stopped moving around. She was far from subtle, but perhaps she was on edge. Everyone else seemed to be moving on, slowly. Work and family beckoned, sucking people back into everything else; John both longed for a distraction and loathed himself for it.

For the first time since before the funeral, John grabbed a bottle of Scotch and poured himself three fingers. He deserved a bloody drink. He deserved to relax, and this was the only way he could let go. He sat down in his chair and closed his eyes, sipping until he was pleasantly dizzy. He exhaled, relishing the burn through his nose. The haze scattered and diffused the intensity of his pain.

He looked around the flat, somewhat satisfied with the meager progress he had made, and when he turned toward the bookshelf, he found himself confronted by Sherlock’s bee books. _ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping_ still stuck out slightly, and John reached out to gently extract it. He cringed as the other books fell into the void it left, but the disorder wouldn’t upset Sherlock now, would it? He opened the book and thumbed through its pages. It smelled musty, and John relished the weight of it in his lap. He started to scan it, taking the time to read Sherlock’s notes now. Even as his vision shimmered with tears threatening to fall, John smiled. He could practically hear Sherlock’s voice. John couldn’t make sense of half of what he was reading, but that wasn’t the _point_. To hear Sherlock again, to see him in his mind’s eye hunched over a thick book taking notes, that was precious.

John fell asleep with the book in his lap and his reading lamp on. He woke in the early morning with a headache and a sore back, with the sour taste of the night before laying thick on his tongue. He closed the book in his lap and tucked it away, thinking little of it before heading to the kitchen to tend to his hangover.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes to therapy.

The cycle of drinking and reading until he passed out stretched on for a week before John made an appointment with Ella, his old therapist whom he had promptly abandoned after Sherlock introduced his own unorthodox form of therapy. Sherlock had never been a fan of Dr. Thompson, insisting that she didn’t know what John actually needed, but he didn’t know where else to turn. Finding a new therapist was out of the question; going back to therapy at all was bad enough. He just needed someone to make sense of all this, to tell him how to fix himself. He wasn’t sure what would come of it, or if anything would come of it, but he needed a change. He had seen this pattern before in his mother and sister, and he didn’t want to get comfortable. Before he knew it, he would be trapped. That was no way to respect Sherlock’s memory. That wasn’t a legacy befitting his best friend.

When he finally forced himself to call the office, he got an appointment quickly due to the urgent nature of his situation. He was caught between relief and annoyance when he hung up. It had seemed like a good idea to reach out for help, but now that it was within reach, he regretted it. An appointment would force him to shower, shave, dress himself. He might even have to do laundry. The formalities of life were overwhelming in their own way. They were a reminder that life went on. In some ways, it felt good to feel some sense of purpose again, but it was so exhausting. Life was relentless in its march forward. John could only do his best to keep up.

On the day of the appointment, John dutifully prepared himself to go out into the world, but the illusion quickly broke once the door closed behind him. John sagged in his chair, barely holding himself together.

She expected him to talk. About Sherlock.

He stared straight ahead, clenching his jaw. His fingertips dug into his chair, and he desperately fought against the mountain of emotion that had become too intimidating to climb. Now it was falling on him as relentless as the rain outside. An avalanche of sadness, and anger, and crushing loss suffocated him under the sheer weight of the truth.

“Why today?” she asked. An innocent enough question.

“Do you want to hear me say it?” He hated the betrayal in his voice, pain that he couldn’t hide.

“Eighteen months since our last appointment,” she countered patiently.

“Do you read the papers?” he challenged.

“Sometimes.”

“Mm.” John couldn’t think of a less approving way to reply to that. She knew why he was back. He could see it in her frown, and hear it in the softness of her voice. Perhaps she knew more than she let on.  “You watch telly. You _know_ why I’m here.”

She didn’t respond to his accusatory tone, so he pressed on.

“I’m here because…” His voice dropped off, and he glanced away, feeling a bit sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes and steeled himself, taking a moment to collect his anguish and stuff it back where it belonged. He heard her shift in her seat, and then she spoke clearly, demanding that he answer her.

“What happened, John?”

He opened his eyes and saw that she was leaning toward him now. He felt like a wounded animal, her prey. She knew he was hurting, and still, she was pushing him harder. Perhaps that was part of the therapy. He had asked for help. He knew he needed it. So, he took his time. He took a deep breath.

“Sher…” A knot rose in his throat, and his voice became too thick to grind out. He swallowed against the block and tried again.

“You need to get it out,” she stated, and he nodded slightly.

“My best friend, Sherlock…” He sniffed. “…is dead.”

The words had tumbled out, but now he was suffocating again, shaking his head at how wrong it sounded. He had been so full of life. The man who had brought _him_ back to life was gone. Even whilst cleaning the flat and sorting Sherlock’s things, John couldn’t shake the denial that seemed to soak back in whenever he let his guard down. It was no longer outright denial. He knew Sherlock was dead, intellectually. He had buried him! He just couldn’t believe it. If he remained stuck in that cycle of disbelief followed by the sucker punch of overwhelming grief, he couldn’t foresee getting better. Hope was a poison he couldn’t wash out of his system.

His chest heaved, but he couldn’t cry. Maybe he had run out of tears. His eyes burned nonetheless, and he apologized to Ella. To her credit, she didn’t try to tell him it was all right. Nothing was all right. When he finally sucked in another deep breath and met her gaze, she was still staring at him, leaning toward him, challenging him.

He met her gaze, but the fire in his eyes had been put out. He couldn’t fight her anymore.

“There’s stuff you wanted to say…” She paused as John opened his mouth briefly, and finished when he closed his mouth again. “But didn’t say it.”

John discovered that he hadn’t run out of tears after all. They burned in his eyes, and his voice broke as he quietly admitted, “Yeah.”

“Say it now.”

John’s chest ached under all the admissions he wished he had made. It was easy to tell himself the tender words could wait when he thought they would have forever, but now, saying the words wouldn’t make a lick of difference. The words weren’t meant for her.

“No,” he said shortly. “Sorry. I can’t.”

“Then tell _him_ ,” she encouraged.

John glanced up with hurt smoldering in his damp eyes. He wouldn’t ask, but his expression begged the question. _How?_

“Talk to him. Tell him what you needed to say.”

John mulled over that as the clock ticked. He thought about what he would say if he had the chance. What should he say now? Talking to a gravestone seemed futile, but perhaps it was better than soaking himself in Scotch and drowning in his own sorrow.

“That’s all the time that we have today,” she said quietly, interrupting his thoughts.  
John felt as fragile as a corn husk as he stood and walked out of her office. He nodded as she encouraged him to make another appointment as needed, and she offered to make him a weekly patient again. He shook his head at that but decided he would give it some thought. As uncomfortable as the sessions were, Ella seemed to know more than she let on.

“I’ll call,” he finally said, pulling on his jacket to face the rain outdoors. “Thank you.”

The words came out flat, but he meant them. Maybe recovery was like a muscle, and to make progress, he needed to feel pain. Maybe, he could get better again. Maybe.  



	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Visiting Sherlock.  
> 

John continued his sessions with Ella, once a week. He didn’t tell Mrs. Hudson where he was going, and frankly, it seemed to be a bit pointless. He wasn’t feeling better. He told her in bits and pieces about what he had been doing, what he was planning, what he had failed to do. Maybe it helped a bit, just to tell someone else some of what was going on in his head. He felt that he couldn’t burden Sherlock’s other friends and despite Harry’s offer, he didn’t want her to know that he was struggling. Ella consistently encouraged him to go talk to Sherlock but never made it a required task. Perhaps she had learned from the blogging assignment that once John had a mind for something, he would follow through better than she could have imagined.

One day, about three weeks after the funeral, John decided he was ready to see Sherlock, to share some of what he wanted to say. He wasn’t ready to say all of it, but Ella seemed to think it might help to get the words out. He didn’t have any better ideas. He trotted down the steps and hesitantly approached Mrs. Hudson’s door. He knocked, and she answered quickly.

“Oh, John!” Her delight was genuine, but her surprise wasn’t. She had likely heard him coming down the stairs. “Come in, come in!”

John shook his head slightly. He didn’t want a proper visit.

“I… was just thinking it might be nice to go-” He paused and licked his lips. “Er, visit. Sherlock.” He pursed his lips and glanced up to see her reaction. He didn’t want to go alone, and a companion would keep him accountable. Ella might congratulate him for his self-awareness in that respect. “Would you go with me?”

Mrs. Hudson’s face softened in a way that made John’s nose burn. He blinked stolidly.

“That sounds lovely,” she replied, a little too emphatically.

John nodded shortly. “I’ll get a cab, then.”

She joined him on the street a few minutes later with a wad of tissues and a handful of flowers. She offered him a few tissues, which he quietly declined. He wasn’t going to cry. He was getting better, he would prove it. When their cab pulled up, John helped her in, then walked around and climbed in himself. He cleared his throat and gave their destination, ignoring the lingering glance in the rearview mirror. Thankfully the cabbie had the sense to keep his mouth shut, and the back seat fell into unsettled peace as well. John had learned not to mention Sherlock in public; the media storm that had built his reputation had flattened it in a tornado of hatred and ridicule, and the public took the news as it came.

When they arrived at the cemetery, John directed the driver to Sherlock’s grave, a little surprised that he remembered the twists and turns. When they finally reached the spot, John stared out the window disdainfully. The ground had flattened now, but the grave was still a bare rectangular patch of dirt. He felt a strong urge to leave. It was the path of least resistance. Then Mrs. Hudson stirred as she shifted to get out, and he remembered he had little choice but to go. Accountability had its merits. “We’ll just be a few minutes, mate,” he murmured quietly, patting the seat in front of him.

He walked over the uneven burial ground with Mrs. Hudson, stopping when they reached Sherlock’s grave. Outside the confines of the car, she had begun griping about the state of the flat. John had plateaued, leaving the bulk of Sherlock’s things in place. He couldn’t get rid of them, and he refused to involve Mycroft.

“There’s all the _stuff_ , all the science equipment,” she lamented.

“It’s all in boxes,” John offered, as though that helped matters.

“It could go to a school,” she countered, glancing up at him. “Would you…?”

“I…” John hesitated. “I can’t…”

He couldn’t even finish his thought as Mrs. Hudson reached out to hold his arm in a silent show of support. Though he had diligently packed several boxes of Sherlock’s things, he couldn’t quite bring himself to take them out of the flat. Each day he felt like he was out of place, living in a ghostly world filled with wisps of another life that he could sense, but never fully grasp. He was stuck at an impasse: he couldn’t let go of Sherlock’s things because he needed to keep the man’s memory alive, but the vestiges were making it impossible for him to move on.

“I’m angry,” he finally stated. The admission was a weight off his chest, and he had to suck in a deep breath as a counterbalance.

Mrs. Hudson patted his arm. “It’s okay, John. There’s nothing unusual in that. That’s the way he made _everyone_ feel.” She stared at Sherlock’s headstone for a moment. “All the marks on my table; and the _noise_ – firing guns at half past one in the morning!”

“Yeah,” John breathed. She didn’t understand.

“Bloody specimens in my fridge!” she continued. “Imagine – keeping bodies where there’s food!”

John thought of Sherlock’s body beneath the ground now. He closed his eyes and saw Sherlock’s grey, dead eyes staring at him from the fridge. “Yes,” he said tightly.

“And the fighting! Drove me up the wall with all his carryings-on!”

John couldn’t take it anymore. He turned to her, his heart in his throat. “Yeah, listen. I- I’m not actually _that_ angry, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied, withdrawing from him. “I’ll leave you alone to, erm… You know.”

She started walking back toward the cab, making use of the tissues in her pocket to blow her nose. John stared down at the dirt over Sherlock’s body, trying to imagine that he was talking to more than a stone. If Sherlock were here he would no doubt ridicule him, reminding him that the corpse couldn’t hear him. In some ways, that was emboldening; in others, heartbreaking. He glanced over his shoulder to check that Mrs. Hudson was well past gone, then he turned back to Sherlock and drew a deep breath. The time had come.

“Um. Mmm.” John had prepared some words. He needed preparation, else he might have talked the whole night away. He gathered his thoughts and started off, a bit hesitant at first. “You… you told me once you weren’t a hero. Um… there were times I didn’t even think you were _human_ ,” he remembered calling the man a machine, the last words he had thrown in Sherlock’s face, “but let me tell you this: you were the best man, and the most human… human being that I’ve ever known and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. So… there.”

He exhaled heavily and swallowed against a cry welling up. He managed to subdue it to a whimper. Arguments between two stubborn men often meant that securing the last word could drag into a new argument of its own. Now it would be his, forever. He found it wasn’t as satisfying as he thought. He shuffled up to the headstone and brushed his fingers across the cold granite, so much less forgiving than Sherlock’s stoniest expressions. He was a man of flesh and blood, with soft skin and bright eyes, even in his stormy moods.

“I was _so_ alone, and I owe you so much.” He inhaled shakily. “Okay.”

He could expound, laying bare the shame of his situation, but Sherlock knew. If he hadn’t known before, he knew now. That was one of the things he had always wanted to tell Sherlock, one of the things he didn’t dare admit to Ella. Sherlock had saved his life the day they met – Mike, really, had derailed him, and then Sherlock took that momentum and turned his life around. He had reached the end of his rope, he had nothing left to hold, and then Sherlock took his hand and ran with him. He still had bad days. There were days he found it difficult to get out of bed, and he _still_ couldn’t fathom the idea of driving – it put him back in the seat of the MRAP in Helmand. He bore the scars of his trauma, but they were no longer weeping wounds.

He turned away from the headstone and started to walk back to the cab. He had said what he had come to say. But he stopped, turning back to face Sherlock’s name.

“No, please, there’s just one more thing, mate, one more thing.” He hadn’t planned this. He hadn’t practiced this in his head. “One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t… be… dead.” His voice broke and thickened with tears. “Would you do that? Just for me, just stop it.” He could almost always convince Sherlock to do something he didn’t want to, just for him. He felt his self-control unraveling as he gestured helplessly toward the barren ground. “Stop this.”

He felt like a child, lost and alone and delusional. He dropped his head in shame and cried, covering his face with his palm. His right leg burned and ached as he wept. He knew Mrs. Hudson was waiting in the cab. He needed to go. He pulled himself together and drew himself up to attention. Sherlock had never enlisted to his knowledge, and John was officially ex-Army, but they had served together. John saluted his fellow soldier with a nod, then he turned on his heel and walked away.

John didn’t feel peace, or relief, exactly. He felt like shit. But he had spoken the truth, and that made him feel a little less alone. Sherlock always had that effect on him. Even when they sat at night absorbed in their own work and thoughts, they were alone together. John decided he might visit more often, just to capture that feeling again. He didn’t have to pretend that Sherlock was alive to be alone with him, and he didn’t have to talk. He could simply be.

On the ride back to Baker Street, John held Mrs. Hudson’s hand loosely in his as he mulled over the muddled thoughts swimming around his head. He knew he couldn’t stay at the flat. He needed a change, a place of his own. He needed to survive this, to bear witness to Sherlock’s genuine genius. He couldn’t squander the gift of life that Sherlock had bestowed upon him that invigorating night. To get a place of his own, he would need a job. Mrs. H had been very forgiving about the bills, but he couldn’t depend on her generosity forever. He knew he wasn’t quite moving on, but he could move forward. Sherlock would consider it idiotic to stay stuck in the mire for any longer – he had already wasted time moping about. He needed to form a plan.

He found himself eagerly anticipating his session with Ella the next week. He didn’t look forward to the probing or the prodding, but he had some progress to report. He was still miserable, and he still struggled with the unbelievable denial, and it was still embarrassing to go to therapy, but he could see a few steps ahead of him. He was even ready to take them.

Slowly, John branched out. He got better at deflecting impolite questions and politely accepting condolences as he planted the seeds of the next chapter of his life. He reached out to Sarah and officially tendered his final resignation, apologizing for his sporadic assistance and requesting a letter of reference for his upcoming job search. He was relieved to find that she had no bad blood toward him, and he only got a little misty when she brought up their misadventure with Sherlock. Sarah had understood John’s predicament all too well, but unlike most of the women John dated, she never resented Sherlock. John appreciated that now more than ever.

It took a couple weeks to find a job that was a good fit – especially since he was looking at flats at the same time. Eventually, he struck a balance between cost and commute, and he settled on both a clinic and a place to call his home. Throughout the process, he visited Sherlock a few times. He didn’t need to say much, at least not out loud. He found it easier to examine his own mind when he was there, almost as if Sherlock was helping him sieve and sort his thoughts from his feelings. He hoped Sherlock would be proud of his efforts.

Moving forward felt good. Sometimes he felt bad for feeling so good, but Ella assured him that it was a common reaction to the recovery process. Work brought a sense of stability back to his life. As much as the nine-to-five bored him, it ensured that he slept, ate, and showered on a regular basis. The cheques didn’t hurt, either. He moved into his new studio and gradually made his own space, leaving behind the organized chaos that comprised his life with Sherlock. Some messes just couldn’t be sorted.

John kept his appointments with Ella and kept skirting the issue of his blog. He didn’t have anything to say. He certainly didn’t have anything to say to the world. He needed to focus on his life, for now, he insisted. He still found himself reading old entries at night, sometimes. He still felt like a guest on his own blog. Ella made a note of that when he let that slip during a session. As he fell into a routine, the weekly meetings became bi-weekly. The appointments started feeling less clinical, a lot less painful. Now it was more keeping track of his life. How was work? Any friends? Was he dating? John shook his head whenever she asked that. He wasn’t ready to date. He hadn’t really dated in the last six months of Sherlock’s life, anyway. He had discovered that save for his libido, everyone was a lot happier that way, and he could manage his libido well enough. It was a sustainable life, until it fell apart. He didn’t share those details with Ella.

As months dragged on, John found that he was starting to feel better. He was hesitant to use that word, and he warned Ella against the phrase, but he explained to her that he gradually felt more present. He still measured the passage of time relative to Sherlock’s death, but the 12th of every month was no longer anchored to sadness. He no longer felt chained to his grief. The freedom tasted bittersweet. As he grew more accustomed to the world without Sherlock (though he knew he would never fully adjust) he found it slightly easier to live with the daily reminders that had felt like salt in his raw wounds in the early days. He might get upset, but he could keep going. He still felt wounded, but not mortally.

That sentiment quavered a bit. The holidays nearly broke him.

Christmas, then New Years, then five days later, Sherlock’s 35th birthday. John had never known about Sherlock’s birthday before the funeral. Now he knew he would never forget the date.

That small fact had made him question the foundation of their friendship in the early, fragile days of grief. But then, there were so many things about Sherlock he never knew, and things Sherlock hadn’t known about him – of course, Sherlock didn’t care about mundane details.

Between the lonely festivities, or lack thereof, compounded with the break from consistent support from Ella, John found himself on the floor in the middle of a bender. He had cut down on his drinking considerably over the autumn months as he leaned into his new work, granting himself a pint with his colleagues on the rare occasion he felt like being social, but now he was alone and he couldn’t stop himself. He called Harry on the night of Sherlock’s birthday after drinking a quarter of a bottle. As he babbled on about his holidays and how much he missed Sherlock, he eventually admitted how drunk he was – as if she couldn’t tell. He then debated whether he was _still_ drunk from the night before, or if this counted as a new day of being drunk. He hoped to hear a laugh, or maybe a serious answer, but he was met by crackly silence.

“Hullo?” he slurred into the phone, pulling it away from his ear to check that he hadn’t lost the connection. She was there; she was simply at a loss for words, for once. “Harry??”

Finally, her voice abruptly rang out. “John… uh. Do me a favor, Johnny? Let’s put the whiskey down, hm? Let’s find the cap- Tell me when you’ve got it.”

“There you go,” she gently praised him as he followed her instructions. He was slowly losing his steam as the alcohol started to settle. His dizziness no longer felt giddy, and his glee quickly turned to guilt. He begged her to tell him what to do, and she complied.

Under her guidance, he found some headache pills and put them out for the morning. He wrote a note to make a scramble, and told Harry a meandering anecdote about how Sherlock used to eat eggs and soldiers. John hated soft boiled eggs, but he would make them for Sherlock.

Harry couldn’t help but snicker and tease John. “Did he like the _other_ kind of soldiers...?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” she sighed. “Get into your pajamas.”

“I _am_ ,” he slurred defiantly. “I sleep in my pants.”

Harry squealed, and John giggled for the first time in far too long. The giggle warped from a lighthearted laugh to a compulsive sob as John crawled into bed. He gasped for breath and gathered his pillow against his chest.

“I’m uh… I’m uh… I’m getting tired now, Harry.” He yawned at the thought of sleep.

“I love you,” she said earnestly, the first time that night that she sounded anything other than in control. If John were sober, he would have heard the concern in her voice.

“Love you too! Bye!” he announced abruptly, ending the phone call as he snuggled into his pillow. He passed out in minutes, floating on a cloud of intoxicated bliss.

Harry didn’t sleep much that night. She considered a trip to London and resolved to ask John about it in the morning. She had never really been in this position before. He had always been cleaning up after her, listening to her rants and raves, healing her broken heart. Years of hurt lay between them, but he was her brother, and she was his sister; they found a way to push through the past to reach one another when it mattered most.

When morning came, John wasn’t sure what he regretted more: the drinking or the phone call. He felt too humiliated to thank Harry for her help, and he couldn’t bear hearing her voice, so he sent a long text asking her to keep the previous night’s events between themselves.

She replied several hours later with one letter. _“K.”_

John remembered why he kept his distance from her. Harry remembered why she stopped trying.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new beginning

The days tumbled on, some quicker than others.

A new flat and a new routine afforded John the luxury of avoiding his grief, for the most part. Unfortunately, that also meant avoiding most of his friends. He still saw Ella, but she wasn’t a friend. She was a weekly reminder that as much as he liked to think he had moved on, he was still stuck in the mire of his emotions. They mostly talked about his workplace, his coworkers. Office friendships mainly revolved around work – going to lunch, happy hour, texting back and forth. Nothing personal, and that suited John perfectly.

Ella disapproved.

“What happened to your blog?” she asked him one day, a chilly day in April.

John froze, his lips twitching into a pensive frown. “I’m done with all that,” he said quietly.

Ella merely raised an eyebrow.

“Nobody reads it,” he continued.

“I do,” she admitted. “I’ve checked it.”

John looked away and raised his hands in defeat. “I don’t have anything to say!” He dropped his hands on his thighs with a muffled slap, massaging above his knee with his thumb.

“That’s what you told me before,” Ella pointed out. “Before you met Sherlock,” she clarified.

John met her gaze, and Ella knew she made her mark. There was fear in his eyes, desperation. He hadn’t forgotten those dark days, and he didn’t want to return.

“You need to talk about this, John. If you don’t… you will go back.” She crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt. “You’re not there yet, but I don’t think either of us want that for you.”

“No.” The word was nearly lost to her ears. He shifted uncomfortably.

“Write something,” she encouraged him. “I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say.”

John went home after the appointment and pulled out his laptop. He typed in the web address that used to be the first bookmark in his browser. He opened a new post and stared at the blinking cursor. Nothing came to mind. After about five minutes he closed the post. Opening the blog felt like brushing the dust off an old book. He was reminded of looking through Sherlock’s things – the way his ghost lingered in his scrawl. John sighed softly and prodded through his old posts, clicking on his drafts out of curiosity. Several cases sat abandoned and unfinished. He smiled fondly at some of them, then returned to write his new post. It was sort of nice being back on the blog. Odd, but nice. He typed out a long post, then saved it to post later. He didn’t want to publish it right off the top of his head. Besides, there was more he wanted to say. He just wasn’t sure how to say it. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to publish online, just in case anyone would still see it on his blog.

Over the course of the next week, John found himself drawn back to the blog. He worked on some of the old cases, adding new details and anecdotes as they occurred to him. He stared at his so-called assigned blog post, getting a little more done each day. By the end of the week, he finally posted the update. It felt awkward, but it was a start. A New Beginning. The more John wrote and re-wrote the entry, the more the title felt apt. Maybe _this_ was moving on.

Later that night, he saw a comment from Ella.

‘You’re doing the right thing, John.’

John smiled at the encouraging comment and quickly typed out a reply. ‘Yeah. It feels good. Thanks. Typing up the old cases now.’

He continued to work on his drafts, but new comments kept popping up. Jacob, Mike, Mrs. Hudson. John thanked Jacob, a young fan who had been following the blog for a long time. Mike and Mrs. Hudson had asked about getting a drink, along with someone new, Mary, who signed off with a kiss. John ignored them. Even Harry still followed the blog, it seemed, but she didn’t have anything to say about his post.

She only wrote ‘Everyone thinks drink is the answer but it isn’t.’

John rolled his eyes. They didn’t need to have this argument, and certainly not on such a public forum.

‘I don’t think there is an answer. I’ve just got to keep going.’

‘And you will. X’ Mary again.

‘Who’s Mary?’ Harry asked.

John wasn’t sure how to answer that. He wasn’t sure whether he should be encouraged or put off by the persistent commenter, or the apparent flirtation. He decided to ignore it. He had other things to focus on, like the old cases to finish. It did feel good, going back through them. That part of his life was over, but the good memories remained. Sherlock’s amazing talents still rang true, and this was the best proof he could offer. He tried to find happiness in his task, and to some degree, he succeeded. He tinkered and scrolled through pictures until it was well past time for him to get some sleep. He saved his posts and drifted off to sleep with mixed feelings. He missed Sherlock. He missed that life. He wished more than anything that he could have it back, but it was nice to revisit it for a little while.  


 

Monday morning at the clinic, he felt different, but in a good way. He felt more whole. Over the past several months he had shunned part of his past – and a big part of himself. He was emotionally exhausted but hopeful that he could make something of this new beginning. It was easier to smile at patients, laughing with them over anecdotes and asking about their weekends. The fog was starting to lift, and John was so grateful.

He took his lunch in his office and leaned back in his chair with a frown when he heard a knock. He wasn’t expecting an appointment for at least an hour and a half. He had been rather looking forward to enjoying his long lunch. He swiveled his chair toward the door. “Yes?”

To his surprise, one of the nurses, Mary, opened his door holding her lunch. His relief was apparent in his expression, and she giggled when she realized he thought he was getting stuck with an unexpected patient. “Hey. Sorry to interrupt. I hoped we might be able to chat?”

John’s brow rose slightly, but he nodded, pulling up another chair and scooting over so she would have room to eat.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“Yeah, um.” John suddenly wished he had packed a napkin. “What’s up?”

Mary sat down and tugged on the sleeves of her cardigan before pulling out her lunch. The warm scent of curry and fresh naan filled the room, and suddenly John’s sandwich seemed incredibly boring. Mary was relatively new to the clinic – she had started working there shortly after he did. As they both eased into a regular schedule, they worked together frequently, though they hadn’t interacted much outside of work. While John was reticent in his grief, Mary was vivacious. She had a smile for everyone and sarcasm too. She was smart as a whip and didn’t hold back from lashing anyone who doubted her. John liked her as a coworker and admired her pluck.

John took another bite of his sandwich and contemplated Mary, wondering why she might be joining him. She looked up with a smile and he instinctively smiled back around his mouthful. He quickly swallowed and cleared his throat. “So, um, you wanted to talk?”

Mary nodded once, hesitating for a moment.  “I found your blog.”

“Oh.” That was the last thing John would have expected her to say. “Er…”

Mary mercifully filled the space between them. “I saw your most recent post, and I wondered if you’d be up for a drink with me? Tonight, or… whenever you’re available.” She took a small bite of her curry but kept her eyes on John.

John felt her gaze and exhaled in a huff. His gut instinct was to say no. He didn’t particularly want to go out, and he really didn’t want to go on a date. He wasn’t ready for something new, for someone new. But if he never moved forward, where would that leave him? When he had met Mike in the park, his instinct had told him to go back to his bedsit. Only his leg had kept him from running away. Once Mike had introduced him to Sherlock, he _had_ to follow up. That night, his life had been changed forever.

“…Yeah.” He nodded. “That was you on the blog, then? ‘Mary, x.’” He mimed quotation marks with his fingers, and her blush teased out a small smile from him. “How did you find it?”

Mary shot him a look. “I don’t live under a rock. People talk.”

John shifted. He hadn't realized his blog was quite so famous, still – or infamous? “So, drinks?”

Mary beamed, and John smiled back. This was something. He wasn’t sure how far it would go, but it was better than nothing. John grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote down his mobile number and a suggestion for where to go, handing it over to Mary. “You said you’re new to London?”

Mary tucked the scrap in her pocket and nodded. “Yeah, I uh, I moved here… about a year ago? Yeah, almost a year.”

“Time flies, doesn’t it?” John laughed as Mary came to grips with how quickly time had passed.

“Yeah! Really does. And I _still_ haven’t gotten out to really see things, you know?” She scoffed and tore the piece of naan in her lunch, using it to soak up the remnants of her curry.

“We can go see things,” John replied almost immediately. “Together.”

Mary looked up with a pleased smile once again. “Yeah?”

John nodded. “Yeah. The parks, the river walk… the touristy crap.” He paused for a moment. “D’you know I haven’t been to some of that either? Tower of London, all that.”

“We’ll go together then,” Mary declared, solidifying the plan.

After they finished eating, they continued talking. Mostly about Mary’s past, but John answered a few questions as well. Mary had the sense to give his time with Sherlock a wide berth. He wasn’t excited to talk about himself, and Mary was far more interesting than him. Her mother had been a product of the British occupation in India, her grandfather, a Colonel in the British Army. Her grandmother had taken her mother to Pakistan. Mary had been born there as Mariam. After her mother passed, she had been passed around her family until she ended up with her grandfather, who renamed her Mary Elizabeth. John didn’t have to be a genius to deduce that the Colonel had been a poor guardian. Mary didn’t delve into much detail, but John could empathize with aspects of her unhappy childhood. The drinking, the anger, the hurt, and the resulting estrangement; it was all painfully familiar. After graduating university, beyond eager to escape the confines of England, Mary traveled through several countries working as a nurse. John couldn’t stop the questions bubbling from his lips.

“Why come back to London?” John finally asked.

Mary bit her lip. “I needed a change. A fresh start.”

John could understand that. With little family and no firm ties elsewhere, he had gravitated to London after his discharge. It seemed the natural place for someone with nowhere else to go.

When John’s phone dinged with an alert to prepare for his next patient, he swore quietly and stood up. Mary certainly had an intrigue, and he didn’t want to stop talking to her. He was now rather looking forward to that drink. It would be nice to get out and spend time with someone again. Maybe something could come of it, after all. He wasn’t ready to entertain that notion beyond a mere possibility, but it _was_ a possibility, and that was… good.

By the end of the night, John was glad he had turned out. Mary made him laugh, assisted by a few drinks. She made him forget himself and his grief for a few hours. When Mary pointed out the hour and they agreed it was time to part, John eagerly arranged a follow-up for the weekend. He returned to his flat well past one in the morning with a heady buzz and palpable relief. He stripped down to his boxers and lay on his bed, both enjoying and regretting the way his head spun. A small smile didn’t quite want to leave his lips, and as emotions washed over him like lapping waves, his eyes misted over. Happiness felt _good_. He missed it. He needed it. Maybe he had found it, with Mary.

The weekend beckoned, and the promise of a good time buoyed him through the taxing process of reviewing some old photos on his phone and laptop, compiling them in another post for the blog. It was hard for him to talk about these things, but when he wrote them down, he could make sure he said what he wanted to express. One of the things he admired about Mary was her candor. She had laid bare years of hurt before him during their first lunch together, and they had been taking their lunches or coffees together, whichever their schedules allowed. They had gotten around to talking about more pedestrian things – hobbies, interests – and John was excited to take part in Mary’s world. She liked to bake, and let him sample some of her homemade naan. She enjoyed gardening, but couldn’t keep much more than a few houseplants in her tiny flat. John sympathized and suggested a walk in the park before grabbing dinner on Friday.

Thursday morning, John published his polished post. It felt raw, but he felt steady. He knew the wounds would heal. A few emails popped up about comments – mostly Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Turner arguing. John closed the tab when Mary poked her head in when she started her lunch. He would much rather focus on her. The next morning, he busied himself with fussing over his outfit, shaving, and plotting out the details of the evening before going to work. When he habitually checked his email, he saw one vitriolic comment on his blog from an anonymous prick: _The man was a lying scumbag and he deserved to die for all his lies!!!_

John rolled his eyes. He didn’t have time for that shit. He had a life to live.

_Believe what you like_ , he replied curtly.

He had provided more than enough evidence for the skeptics. Anyone who persisted in insulting Sherlock was only out to cause trouble. John wasn’t going to let some idiot ruin his day. In the early afternoon, Ella texted him. He had told her about his plans with Mary, and it seemed like she had approved. John couldn’t contain a wry smile and thanked her for checking in. He had stressed that it wasn’t a date. It was just going out. There was a difference.

At the end of the day, John waited for Mary to join him so they could leave together. He held the door for her, then followed her out onto the pavement. “I was thinking Regent’s Park? It’s close to a good spot for dinner. And there’s plenty of flowers,” John reasoned.

“That sounds perfect,” Mary said warmly.

They rode the tube together, feeling out the undefined boundaries of their new friendship. John didn’t want to admit even to himself how long it had been since he had gone out for anything other than drinks. John kept his hands firmly tucked in his pockets, swaying gently as the train rattled along the track. When they reached the Baker Street stop, John gestured for Mary to exit with him. His lips thinned but he kept his eyes straight ahead. He exhaled hard through his nose and headed toward the bridge to the inner circle. His heart pounded and his throat felt tight. They were close to the flat. Too close for comfort. He knew he couldn’t face the flat, but perhaps he had overestimated his tolerance for the surrounding area. Mary took his twitching hand and interlaced their fingers. Though he tensed at first, surprised by the unexpected contact, he soon relaxed. He wasn’t ready for something serious. He knew that. But this felt nice. As he grew accustomed to the warmth of her palm against his, he grew bolder. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb as they walked. That’s all the contact he wanted, and it suited his needs. He glanced at Mary periodically to check that she seemed comfortable. He found that she was barely paying attention to him; the early signs of Spring that flourished around them held her gaze. Life thrummed around them: strolling families chatted, birds called out to find mates, bees buzzed on new blooms.

“The rose garden is really spectacular in the summer,” John said softly. “We should come back.”

Mary’s lips curled into a small, pleased smirk. “I suppose we will. Or the botanic gardens, if you’re keen on flowers.”

“Never been there either,” he admitted.

“You’re on the late shift Tuesday,” Mary countered. “And I’m off. We could go in the morning? Flowers all year round, there.”

John agreed before he could overthink it.

They walked through the park until the cooling evening air and the gnaw of hunger ushered them into a restaurant. John felt unsettled as they sat down at a table together. He almost didn’t need the menu in his hands; he knew the menu well since Sherlock had finagled a delivery deal with the owner. He knew by this point that he had made a mistake by coming to this part of London. It had been almost a year since Sherlock died, but he keenly felt the pull of home. He couldn’t shake the petty feeling that he should be seeing Sherlock sat across from him at the table. He dampened the traitorous thought with a couple glasses of wine, trying to enjoy Mary’s wit and smile while the ache of loss smoldered in his chest. When they parted for the night, Mary kissed his cheek; he didn’t return it, only smiling. After seeing her into a cab, he walked away from the restaurant. He didn’t want to take a cab back to his flat. Not yet. Slightly buzzed from the wine and Mary’s kiss, he wasn’t sure he should be alone with his thoughts in the back of a cab. He felt safer on the familiar pavement, surrounded and comforted by the ghosts of his old life.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Mary go on a date.

John rarely slept in.

On Tuesdays, he afforded himself the luxury of an extra hour in bed. He stared at his ceiling and bided his time carefully. He didn’t work until three, and the botanic gardens opened at ten. He would meet Mary there, and they would probably get lunch afterward. He grunted and grabbed his phone to check the time, working out when he had to leave. He didn’t want to be late, after all. He checked the train schedule and allowed himself to lounge around for another half hour, then he finally got up. He groaned and stretched, grimacing as his joints popped. The rut of a comfortable routine and a lack of regular exercise had taken their toll. Ever since Helmand, he had looked his age; now he really felt it.

He ambled to the kitchen in his boxers and grabbed a pan, throwing together a quick scramble with some toast, washing it down with a cuppa. He eyed the pile of post that he usually forced himself to sort on Tuesdays and pushed it away for later. He had a prior engagement. He didn’t exactly feel like getting dressed and going out, but he knew it was for the best. Besides, he was meeting Mary – he couldn’t just _not_ show up. Loathe as he was to admit it (even to himself) he often felt fine once he was out of the house. Left to stagnate, he would be worse off. So, he found himself on the Tube again, swaying back and forth on his way to Kew Gardens. He texted back and forth with Mary to pin down exactly where they would meet. Finally, he reached his stop. It was a short walk to the gate where they had agreed to meet. Checking his watch, he was satisfied to see that he had arrived about ten minutes before the gardens opened. Right on time.

He met Mary at the Victoria Gate, hugging her as she offered an embrace. John picked up a map and frowned at it briefly, trying to figure out how much they could realistically do in a day, then revising his plan to make it enjoyable. He knew he wanted to walk through some of the indoor displays, and he enjoyed the solitude of the outdoors, too. He could try to relax around Mary and capture that treasured feeling of being alone, with someone else. It was a rare treat, and one he desperately needed. He hadn’t experienced that kind of tranquil camaraderie since Sherlock died.

While John traced different paths through the sprawling gardens, Mary bought their tickets. John handed over what he owed when she returned. Their fingers drifted together again as they entered the park. Their hands hung between them casually as they followed the path toward the palm house. John wasn’t sure how to define their affiliation as it stood, nor was he certain he wanted to put a label on it. He had taken a similar approach to his friendship with Sherlock. They were firm friends, but there was something else that had remained unspoken. Even if he would have faced rejection, he wished he had told Sherlock about the feelings that now weighed heavily on his heart. He didn’t want to make the same mistakes with Mary.

John pushed aside his hesitancy and allowed casual intimacy to creep into the cracks of his broken heart. It felt good, and he wanted to tend the delicate feelings that were beginning to blossom, lest they bear fruit. As they approached the palm house, John stepped ahead and opened the door for Mary. Hot, humid air hit their lungs, and John inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as he sighed. He took Mary’s hand again after loosening his jacket. He held fast this time, glancing up at the wide green fronds that gently filtered the sunlight streaming through the glass roof.

They walked through the hall until John paused at a bench. He tilted his head, and Mary nodded. They sat down together to enjoy the ambience of the room. The heavy heat was a balm against the chapping chill of the April winds, and a small waterfall babbled in the background. It was a good place to sit and be.

“Pretty picture, innit?” John said after several minutes passed, gesturing toward the manmade stream flowing amongst the plants.

“I think I like this one better,” Mary said quickly, holding the phone up and snapping a selfie. In a moment she captured her victorious grin with a tap of her thumb. John wasn’t facing the camera but was leaning toward her, words hovering just beyond his lips. It was an intimate picture, honest in its spontaneity.

“Aren’t you cheeky?” he teased, his voice soft as velvet.

“Yes,” Mary agreed, quite pleased with herself.

“One more?” John asked, holding up the phone with her again. “Smile, now.”

Mary obliged him, and they took a proper picture together, their cheeks practically squished together in an effort to fit more of their picturesque surroundings into the frame.

“Thank you,” John murmured.

After reviewing the few pictures he had of Sherlock, he wanted to indulge in documenting his happy moments. He would no longer allow himself to be ashamed of his happiness, or his desire to revel in those moments. Whatever this was with Mary, whatever they might be in the future, they were happy. The picture was proof of that.

They sat together on the bench, leaning on each other and soaking in the warmth of each other’s company until the humidity became too much to endure. John grew restless and glanced down at the folded map sitting on his lap.

“Ready for some fresh air?” he asked. He didn’t want to get up, but they ought to move along. “A walk by the Thames might be nice, yeah? And there’s a café there. We can get lunch.” He glanced up and pointed at the door opposite the one they entered through. “If we go out there and follow the path to the right, we’ll hit the river eventually.”

“ _Eventually_ ," Mary repeated. "Is it far?”

John pursed his lips and consulted the map, staring for a moment before shrugging. “About half a mile or so.”

Mary snatched the map and to consult it herself, then shrugged. “Close enough,” she agreed.

John raised his brow but didn’t mouth off. He was getting more comfortable with her. Her brusque manner put him at ease more than any amount of pandering. He didn’t want to risk putting her off by dishing out a full dose of his personality. She had only met his shadow. Substance still eluded him, though he was starting to feel a little more real, a little more himself. Maybe it was selfish, but John didn’t want to lose the one person who made him feel something.

The chilly damp enveloped the pair as they walked out of the balmy greenhouse. Gravel crunched beneath their feet as they walked silently, their hands tucked in their pockets as they acclimated again to the early spring weather. John wondered if or when Mary might fill the space between them with words. He was content to walk in silence, as he and Sherlock used to do. As they continued walking, John was relieved that the silence between them felt organic. It didn't exist for a lack of things to say but because they didn’t _need_ to fill the space. Slowly, slowly, tension drained from John’s shoulders, relieving the ache that radiated along his clavicle. Maybe this was healing.

The path branched off to another exhibit, a twisting metal sculpture on stilts that stretched up toward the sky amidst a field of tender early blooms. John checked his watch – they still had ample time to explore – and gestured toward the strange display.

“Wonder what that is,” he muttered. He had never been particularly attuned to the fine arts.

“I know one way to find out,” Mary replied with a lilt in her voice.

John nodded and turned off the main path toward the installation. From a distance, the structure had almost resembled a cage, cold and looming on its hill. The intricate, almost woven pattern emerged from the mass as they drew closer, layers upon layers of twisted steel stretching up seventeen meters tall. Four walls came together in a square, perched on a platform and surrounded by a circular path through the wildflowers. A series of wide steps wound around the hill to an entrance into the sculpture. John squinted a little as he tried to make any sense of the pattern. Then he saw it – the name of the artwork. They called it The Hive.

They walked onto a glass floor decorated with a honeycomb pattern, and then John looked up. The blue sky shone through the center of the sculpture, and a beautiful concentric pattern filtered smaller patches of the sky. In all the chaos, there had been order. He only needed to look at it from the right perspective. He licked his lips and glanced at Mary, watching her experience the artwork for herself. He tucked his hands into his pockets and drew his heels together as he stared at the walls, then back at the sky. Birds and insects chirped, punctuating his thoughts with a note of reality. As he stood there, it was easy for his mind to drift. As captivating as the sculpture was, he wondered _why_ they called it The Hive. Besides the honeycomb on the floor, he couldn’t quite see the connection.

He noticed lights blinking on and off, seemingly at random. He quirked his brow and pulled out the pamphlet from the front gate. He scanned through until he found the blurb about the attraction. He read out loud, so Mary could follow along. “The Hive is an immersive sound and visual experience. The lights you see and the sounds you hear inside The Hive are triggered by bee activity in a real beehive at Kew. Hmm.”

He glanced around again and couldn’t help but think of Sherlock. He probably would have found all this interesting. Either interesting or a complete waste of time -- it was never an easy call. John pursed his lips and huffed through his nose. He wanted to be able to access Sherlock’s memory without choking; sometimes that meant taking a bitter dose of the past. If he could keep it together now, it would be easier next time. At least that’s what Ella had told him. He hadn’t yet decided if she was full of shit. Mary couldn’t quite place the expression on John’s face. Some mixture of fondness and anxiety, painted by the all too familiar brush of melancholy. She stepped closer, sliding her arm into the crook of his elbow.

“Think they have honey at those cafés?”

John broke out of his reverie and gathered himself immediately. He had been lost to the world, steeped in thoughts too big to hold.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s find out.” John offered a small smile and walked away from what might have been with Mary on his arm.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many happy returns  
> (Posted on John Watson's fanon birthday!)

John was surprised when he heard from Greg rather out of the blue. He had seen him maybe once or twice after the funeral, but then… John was mired in his grief, Greg in never-ending paperwork and tangential guilt; the spiral, like a noose, had tightened considerably after Sherlock’s attempted arrest. Not that it could have been avoided. Greg’s career was already on the line as case after case became subject to appeal as Sherlock's reputation began to crumble. But none of that mattered after Sherlock took his life. Not to him, and certainly not to John. Neither of them felt strongly enough about the other to overcome the awkwardness. Life went on.

But one day, John saw a missed call, just a short message from Greg asking when he could come around. John played the message back a couple times and sighed. It was difficult to see anyone from that time in his life. Even Mrs. Hudson had fallen by the wayside. He had wanted to see her, and he had promised to call, but he couldn’t stand to hear her voice. She was perhaps one of the only people who could fully understand what he was feeling, but he didn’t want to think about it. All she ever wanted to do was _talk_. He saw no reason to plunge himself back into the misery he was just started to escape. Moving on, in this case, had to mean cutting ties and starting fresh. But he couldn’t tell Greg no – that would lead to more questions. John gave himself a little time to mull it over, then he called Greg back and gave the detective his new address. Greg was cordial; John was the same. The old familiarity and warmth weren’t quite there, but Sherlock had brought them together in the first place. Without him, they had little in common besides an affinity for a bit of footy over a pint now and then.

In anticipation of the visit, John tidied up. The whiskey went in a cabinet, flanked by two glasses. Behind the glass door, it appeared more official, as if it were only brought out on special occasions. It was half gone, but Greg wouldn’t notice. He wouldn't pay attention to anything that wasn't prominently displayed. He wasn’t an idiot, but he wasn’t a snoop either. Besides, this was a social visit, not a job. John tossed the miscellaneous post into his bedroom and did his level best to ensure that Greg would have no reason to wonder or worry about him. A few books on the table, curtains opened to let some light in through the bay window. It looked perfectly normal. He looked perfectly normal. Normality was a good disguise; nobody would ever think to question it.

When the bell rang, John exhaled hard and buzzed Greg up. He was met by a box, which he took with a terse smile. He promptly set it down on the counter and moved to let Greg by.

“It’s good to see you, Greg,” he said.

“And you,” the detective answered.

They shook hands.

“Yeah, have a seat,” John murmured with a gesture.

“So, how’ve you been?” Greg asked as he sat down, not bothering to take off his coat.

“Oh yeah, good. Yeah. Much better,” he said, settling on the sofa.

It wasn’t a lie – he was much better. He knew he could be happy again but getting there had been a struggle. He stood on a precipice, teetering from side to side. Some days were better than others. Greg neither needed nor wanted to be privy to his personal struggles, so John deflected.

“Uh, so what’s in the, um,” he pointed at the box Greg had given him.

“Oh, that, yeah. That’s um, that’s stuff from my office. Stuff of Sherlock’s,” he explained. “I probably should have thrown it out, but I didn’t know if…”

Before Greg could finish, John cut him off. “No, fine, yeah.” He smiled and nodded. Even now, his only connection to Greg was through Sherlock. This just confirmed what he already knew.

Greg sucked in a breath and pushed up off the chair, crossing the small room to reach the box. “Yeah, there’s- there’s- there’s something here, um… Wasn’t sure if I should have kept it in,” he admitted. “You remember the video message he made for your birthday?”

John nodded expectantly. Greg had played it for him at the restaurant, right off his phone. He must have filmed it earlier that day. Greg hadn’t called for his birthday. It occurred to John that Greg probably hadn’t remembered his birthday this year. Not a surprise, but a slight all the same.

“Oh, I had to practically threaten him,” Greg continued. John’s lips twitched into an automatic smile in response to Greg’s tone. The words were essentially washing over him.

Greg turned to face him and handed over another DVD in an identical shell case. “This is the _uncut_ version. It’s quite funny,” he said with a chuckle.

“Oh, right.” John reached out and took it, staring down at the disc with a small smile.

After a moment Greg muttered, “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it.”

“Don’t worry. It’s okay,” John said softly. With a quiet laugh, he added, “Probably won’t even watch it.”

Privately he wondered what else Greg might have kept out of the box. It wasn’t worth asking. Greg was moving on, and John didn’t want to hold him back in the past. Besides, if it wasn’t in the box, it was probably in a bin somewhere.

John tossed the DVD onto the coffee table and stood up, reaching out to clasp Greg’s arm. “Thanks for, uh, bringing this stuff, yeah.”

Greg nodded and leaned toward the door. He was clearly uncomfortable. Perhaps he felt that he was intruding on a life that no longer had space for him. Perhaps he was right. The old camaraderie between them felt brittle now, strained by the memory of the friend who had affected both men deeply but in vastly different ways. That chasm stood stark and uncomfortable now. The naked truth was rather ugly, and better clothed in soft white lies.

“I was just… stopping by,” Greg said, treading the line between truth and etiquette. “It was nice seeing you.”

John moved toward the door and opened it, nodding. “Yeah, and you.”

He shut the door and listened to Greg’s footsteps retreat down the hall. His hand slid down the door as he turned to pick up the box and return to the sofa. He set the lid down on the coffee table and reviewed the contents. The pink iPhone from their first case. A box of nicotine patches. A yellow mask, possibly from a circus if he had to guess. A model steam engine, ‘LMS’. John frowned slightly and pulled out a folded note. He almost opened it but tossed it back in and shut the lid. It was private. All of it was private. Sherlock had asked Greg to keep those things. John’s nose burned as his eyes began to water.

“Shit,” he mumbled. He cleared his throat and grabbed the whiskey and a glass. He would only pour enough to ease his mind a little. Just enough to relax his throat and allow him to breathe again. He immediately screwed the cap back on and put the bottle away in the cabinet. He had learned not to leave the bottle within reach on the bad days. It wasn’t a lack of self-control so much as a matter of convenience. He wouldn’t pour another if he had to get up. By the time he summoned the energy to do so, the urge would have passed.

He picked up his glass and settled into his armchair with a sigh, crossing his legs. He took a sip of the whiskey and sat, only for a moment before he lost the battle against his curiosity and grabbed the DVD. He picked up the case and flipped it in his fingers, glancing briefly at the television. He had a player. He had an excuse. This was a chance to see his mannerisms, his stupid little charming habits that he missed so desperately. It was a chance to hear his voice again. To hear his name called by that voice again. Before he could talk himself out of it, John dropped the disc in the player and walked back to grab his drink. He plopped down on the sofa across from the television and stared at the wallpaper in 221B, complete with the spray-painted smiley face he hadn’t been able to scrub away. He took another sip of whiskey to steel himself and stared just above the television as Sherlock’s baritone rumbled into his flat. It had been so long since he had heard that voice. He hadn’t quite forgotten, but the memories had taken a ghostly form. Hearing Sherlock’s voice so clearly was almost alarming.

“Was that supposed to happen – the light going down? Yeah, okay,” came the voice, not yet attached to a body. Sherlock blustered onto the screen and started pacing in front of the sofa, gesturing wildly. “Oh, er, hm. So, what do I, what do I- What d’you want me to do at the end?”

He brought his gaze up to the camera, then he glanced askew, not quite meeting anyone’s eye.

“Shall I, erm…” Sherlock answered his question before he finished asking it. “Smile and wink,” he said decisively, dropping his hands to his sides. “I do that sometimes. I’ve no idea why. People _seem_ to like it. Humanises me.”

“Fine. Whatever,” Greg answered from behind the camera, and John could almost see him rolling his eyes at Sherlock.

Suddenly Sherlock turned back toward the camera and almost whined, “Why am I doing this again?”

“You’re gonna miss the dinner,” Greg pressed.

“Of course I’m going to miss dinner. There will be people!” He turned away from the camera, then suddenly doubled back. “How can John be having a birthday dinner? All his friends hate him.”

John’s lips twitched into a small mirthless smile.

“You only have to look at their faces,” Sherlock continued. “I wrote an essay on suppressed hatred in close proximity based _entirely_ on his friends. On reflection, it probably wasn’t a very good choice of gift.”

After a brief silence, and with a sharp intake of breath, Sherlock re-centered himself. In almost a whisper, he asked, “What was my excuse again?”

“You said you had a _thing_.”

“Ah! Right.” Sherlock’s eyes flashed. “Yes. That’s right. A thing.”

“You might want to elaborate,” Greg suggested.

“No no. No,” Sherlock quickly retorted. “Only lies have detail.”

John wondered what Greg had found so funny in the outtakes. But he had started it now. He would see it through to the end. Sherlock was staring directly at him now, directly at the camera. His birthday had been only a couple of weeks before the end of everything. If he had known… well, lots of things would be different.

“Right, I just- I need a moment to, um, figure out what I’m going to do,” Sherlock said on the video, walking toward the window. The camera followed him.

John stared down into his lap. “I can tell you what you can do. You can stop being dead,” he murmured, washing down the bitter words with whiskey.

“Okay,” Sherlock said, and John’s attention snapped back to the screen. “Okay, I’m ready now.”

Sherlock sat down in his armchair, wiggling a little as he settled in. John remembered from this point on. This was the part that had made the final cut.

“Hello John,” Sherlock said in a cheery tone, garnishing the greeting with a smile. “I’m sorry I’m not there right now. I’m very busy. However, many happy returns. Oh, and don’t worry. I’m going to be with you again _very_ soon.”

John stared at the screen while frustration and sadness twisted in his gut. _Very_ soon indeed. He had gone forever in less than a month! Later that night after John had been dropped off by his so-called mates, Sherlock had been waiting for him with a small celebration of his own. It wasn't much, just a piece of tiramisu with a post-it note: "Happy birthday, John." Sharing dessert with Sherlock in relative silence had turned out a better plan than the whole dinner he had arranged. John's heart twisted when he wondered if Sherlock counted himself among the friends that hated him. Considering what had happened between them shortly afterward, he wouldn't be surprised.

John’s reverie was interrupted by the bell ringing. With a grunt of annoyance, he heaved himself up – he couldn’t ignore the door, so he put Sherlock on pause and left the dregs of his glass for after he sent away whoever the hell was coming to bother him. He wasn’t in the mood.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: I know this took me a while, and still it's short. There's more coming. Hope you all enjoy it.

John opened the door with a little more force than was strictly necessary, and his brow shot up when he saw Mary in her bright red coat smiling at him.

“Oh. Hi.” He offered a tight smile, the best he could manage.

“Is it a bad time?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. Perception flashed sharply in her dark eyes. John knew that look.

“Oh, no. Er, come in.” He stepped aside and waved her in. He was thankful for Greg’s visit – at least it had driven him to tidy the flat.  He hurried over to grab the remote and turned off the television. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Friend of mine just, uh, stopped by.”

Mary had caught a glimpse of the television before John had shut it off, and she eyed the whiskey that John had been sipping. It didn’t take a genius to put it together. The infamous Sherlock Holmes was frozen on the screen with a smile and a wink; his famous companion seeking warmth however he could. She walked up to John and reached out to rub his shoulder. A few seconds of silent massage wore down John’s defenses. When she saw John’s eyes close and felt his tense muscles release beneath her fingers, she quietly asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

John sucked in a deep breath and his mouth twisted into a grimace. Mary was there for him. Mary was there. Still there, even as he struggled to rein in his thoughts and feelings and the tremor in his hand that threatened to leak into the rest of his body. Memories flooded in. He could feel himself shaking. He still felt Mary’s hand calm and warm on his shoulder. He remembered reaching out to take Sherlock’s wrist, desperate to feel a pulse bounding against his fingertips. He remembered the hands that grabbed at him, trying to pull him away from his friend – the man with whom he had wanted to spend the rest of his life. It was different now. Mary wasn’t pulling him away; she was standing with him, holding him steady.

“Erm.” He swallowed hard and sucked in another gulp of air. “Maybe.” His voice cracked as he made his decision. Instead of pulling away from her, he would lean in. “Yeah.”

He sucked in a deep breath and leaned over to grab the remote off the table. He turned the television on again and fiddled with the controls until the DVD rewound.

“Greg Lestrade stopped in. The detective we used to work with,” he explained. “I guess he had some stuff… Um. Thought I might want some of it. So, he dropped it off. And uh, for my birthday last year, he made a video… with Sherlock. This is the unedited version.” He motioned toward the sofa in a silent invitation to sit.

Mary shrugged off her coat and tossed it over the opposite arm of the sofa, then settled in and patted the spot next to her. John nodded shortly and sat down as Sherlock’s voice filled the room again. He eyed the tumbler on the table, tempted to grab it and finish it off, but he folded his hands together and sat slouched like a schoolboy waiting for the principal. This wasn’t the best side of him to display around Mary, but the part of him that kept his back straight and his eyes bright had crumpled. He knew what he was risking – her friendship, their budding relationship, maybe even her respect. Ella had warned him: if he left the wound to fester long enough, it would make itself known in other ways. The pain would turn into an ache, into a sore, into a gaping, rotting hole that nothing could fill or fix. As a doctor, he knew that recovery could often be painful. As a man, it was harder to grapple with that fact.

The clip ended a few minutes later and the speakers hummed as Sherlock stared out from the screen. John turned the television off and looked at Mary speechlessly, only raising his brow. He inhaled deeply and pressed his lips together, searching for something to say.

Mary reached out to hold his knee. He was tense again, ready to burst at the seams. She didn’t want to tug on a loose thread until he fell apart. She squeezed his knee, seeking to hold him together as best she could. Tentatively, she joked, “Bit of a nervous wreck, wasn’t he?”

John snorted. “Yeah.” A small smile graced his lips more genuinely than anything he had felt earlier. This wasn’t cruel, like finding humour in Sherlock’s rambling. Mary had hit it right on the head – the man was nervous. Something about wishing John a happy birthday had made him _nervous_. It was as sweet as it was incomprehensible. “He could be like that,” he murmured.

“What else was he like?” Mary asked, watching John carefully for any signs that she was probing too far. She had read some of his blog, of course, and that painted part of the picture – but perhaps not a complete one. John was a private man, and Mary knew there must have been a million moments of intimacy that made up the magnificent friendship, like brushstrokes on a canvas. Perhaps John alone could see its beauty – that seemed lonely.

John hesitated before opening his mouth. Others had asked out of a sense of duty or morbid curiosity without any genuine concern or desire to understand. But maybe Mary was different. She _had_ been different. She had given him space to grieve, to recover. She had been there just the right amount – present and encouraging, but not smothering.

“He was… kind,” John answered, bringing his private thoughts into the light. “When I met him, I- uh, I wasn’t, em… I wasn’t okay. I was struggling.”

Saying it hadn’t been easy, but it was such a weight off his chest. It was one of the truths that had shaped his relationship with Sherlock, yet he had never addressed it with the other man; it had seemed there was never a good time to talk about it, and then they were out of time.

“He knew, at least on some level, he knew what I needed. He wasn’t always the most intuitive,” John mused with a frown, remembering some of their various miscommunications over the years, “But he was good. He tried to help. And he did.”

John realised that Mary was holding his hand and he held fast. Mary was doing for him now what Sherlock had done back then. His heart was broken but not incapable of beating, or feeling. He wouldn’t let this opportunity pass him by. Not again.

John leaned in.

The summer months were filled with picnics in the parks with sweet wine and kisses that slowly, slowly soothed the bitter taste of loss. They trod familiar paths and made them their own. They ate their way through Chinatown, visited the little pizza place in Brixton that served homemade lemonade, stretched out in a field in Morden Hall Park to watch the starry skies on a clear night. John brought Mary to all the tourist traps they had never seen before; they particularly enjoyed the Eye. They revisited the sculpture at Kew Gardens. As soft music played and lights danced around them, John told Mary about Sherlock’s apparent fascination with the bees. Over brunches and quiet post-film cuddles, Mary told John about her struggle to put the past behind her as she tried to build a future. She told him about her ex, and the three of them even went out for drinks. David seemed to understand that he was her friend now, and John could hardly balk at her desire to keep in touch. He would expect the same grace granted toward him, after all. Mary explained that all she wanted was a normal family, unmarred by the pain of her past. The couple built a foundation poured with honesty and tended with care – John might even say love.

The heat of summer dropped off into fall, and John decided it was time for some changes. He cut his hair, grew a moustache, and bought himself a proper coat to keep the wind out. Working full time had its benefits – primarily, he could afford to upgrade some aspects of his lifestyle. He put his appointments with Ella on hiatus; he felt fairly well managed on his own, and it was a waste of time and money to continue the sessions when there was nothing much to say. Things were changing again, things were getting better again. John wanted to stop focusing on the past and look ahead at whatever the future might bring. Mary approved. By the end of August, they started looking for a flat together. They spent a good deal of time together, sleeping over more than half the time, so it was a practical solution and a thrilling step forward. The move forced John to confront a question: forward toward what? He was no longer content to leave things to chance. He needed to be a man of action again. If he wanted this to turn out well, he would need to take steps to ensure their future. Part of that, he decided, was properly putting the past to rest. Putting Sherlock to rest. He couldn’t share his life with Mary if Sherlock’s ghost was constantly hanging over his shoulder. He knew he wasn’t going to find anyone better than Mary. Not at his age, not at this stage of his life. She accepted him for who he was, what he had endured, and in those ashes, she saw a future. He had to believe in her vision; what else could there be for him?

**Author's Note:**

> Sources...  
> Transcripts: http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/31651.html  
> John’s blog: johnwatsonblog.co.uk  
> Sherlock Timeline: http://bakerstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Sherlock_Timeline  
> Baker Street Wiki: http://bakerstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page  
> Kew Gardens Map: https://www.kew.org/sites/default/files/Welcome to Kew map spring17.pdf
> 
> Thank yous...  
> Kelly – for encouraging me, for reading and editing my roughest of first drafts  
> Daria – for encouraging and sharpening me  
> Jeff - for encouraging me to write. Miss you, love you.
> 
> Author note: I attempted to stay consistent with the show’s timeline, but I made some changes for the sake of the narrative (the Hive sculpture at Kew Gardens didn’t open until 2016) – we’ll call that artistic license. I’m carrying on Arthur Conan Doyle’s tradition of not giving a single shit.
> 
> I did not create these characters. I do not own them. I like to play with them.
> 
> Written January 2017 - ?


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